


Royal Blue

by firstwiththeheadthenwiththeheart



Category: Rocket Power (TV)
Genre: Multi, POV Multiple, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstwiththeheadthenwiththeheart/pseuds/firstwiththeheadthenwiththeheart
Summary: Otto is restless. Twister is lost. Reggie is torn. Olive is searching. Sam is tired. And Lars is pretending.A lot has happened since they were children, and there is still much more to come.





	Royal Blue

**OTTO: ******

********

He stared at the ceiling, listening to the dull drumming of rain hitting the roof and the furious clicking of keys as Reggie typed. 

The TV droned on, but he couldn't focus on the show. It was about kids in high school being hilarious, or awkward, or something; Reggie watched it a lot. He kept blinking at the screen, thinking that it would catch his interest, but it never held.

Restlessness shook his body, his hands wouldn't stay put, his feet kept tapping against the hardwood floor.

It had been unusually rainy for the area, because of the hurricane that waned and died out, but brought a huge storm onto California with its last dying breath. A whole week straight of rain, and today was the first day their dad let them stay home instead of help out at The Shack. But it was still raining. 

_What if it rained forever? What if it just never stopped raining and he would have to stay inside for the rest of his life?_

That was stupid. He could handle a little rain. He could handle anything.

"Hey."

Otto tapped on Reggie's ankle. Her toes were painted purple, like the color her hair used to be. He wondered if she did it on purpose. If she kept a lock of her purple hair tucked into her purse and compared it to toe nail polish at the store.

The thought sort of creeped him out.

"Hey."

She still didn't respond. Half of her hair was piled into a bun right on top of her head. She looked ridiculous. Her foot was bouncing and her eyebrows were pushed together in concentration as she looked at something on her screen, mouthing the words as she read.

_"Hey."_

He wished that he could stare at screens all day the way she, Sam, and even Twister could. He wasn't made to look at screens or be indoors.

Otto often felt explosive.

He wanted to yell, run, jump, crash. He loved sand between his toes and being beaten up by waves. He loved the taste of concrete and the scream of wheels on a rail. He loved fresh, salty air and the sharp, coppery tang of blood.

His addiction wasn't to social media, or drugs, but to adrenaline. He would do anything for that feeling in the pit of his stomach when he was about to do the impossible. Anything at all.

It was all about living, not merely existing.

Otto clenched his fists, then released them.

He needed _to do_ something.

" _Regina_ ," he groaned, raking his fingers across his face pulling it taunt.

"Jesus fucking Christ," she snapped, her eye narrowed at him. "What?"

"I'm _bored_ ," he said, sitting up and wrangling his dreads into a ponytail.

Otto glanced outside, seeing sheets of rain still coming down. He stared at the trailer, which had showed up a little over two years ago. 

It’s where that Olive girl lived—the one who always sat on her porch reading books, whose dad, or whatever he was, was always stumbling around drunk, like he was now, and who always said no. Sometimes he thought it was the only word she knew, but almost every day she had a new library book in her hands, so she must have some sort of vocabulary.

It was weird, though. For him to hear the word no.

Not a lot of people said it to him. And it made her stand out. 

_No, no, no._

Ever since he met her, ever since she moved into that shitty ass trailer, she had been telling him no.

He thought about the tarp in their garage and wondered if he could get the guys over for a makeshift slip 'n slide.

"Call Twist, I'm busy," Reggie muttered, looking back at her screen in an aggravated sort of concertation.

Otto groaned and flopped backwards.

He had already called Twister, hours ago.

No answer.

He was probably still sleeping, or something.

Otto groaned loudly again, but grabbed the phone. He dialed Twister's number, glaring at his sister as the phone rang.

**TWISTER:**

"What the fuck are you looking at?"

A hand shoved Twister's back, causing his forehead to hit the window with a sharp crack.

"What the Hell, Lars?" he muttered, rubbing the spot that crashed into the glass with one hand and shoving Lars with the other. His brother let out a hollow laugh. He had always had a creepy laugh. "That neighbor guy is drunk again."

Twister stared at the man out on the street. He didn’t look old enough to be a dad—well, not a dad for someone as old as Twister. And he knew that Olive Ellis was the same age as him. They had four classes together in school.

Their trailer was really shitty. The paint was peeling, there was a boarded-up hole in the ceiling, and the lawn hadn't been mowed in years—since they had moved in to be exact.

"What do you think he’s yelling about?" Twister asked, glancing over at his brother, who was rubbing his neck where the words ‘fuck off’ were inked into his skin. Lars shrugged, looking bored of the conversation already.

"Who the fuck cares?" he muttered, grabbing a hoodie off the chair behind Twister.

"He’s always yelling."

"Maybe his wife is a whore and he caught her cheating again. Or maybe he ran out of dope, and is too high to go get more, so he’s just screaming his fucking lunatic head off. Or maybe his favorite fucking TV show just got cancelled. _Again, who the fuck cares_?"

Lars roughly tousled Twister's hair, before shoving his head back into the window.

"Your fucking friend called again today and it woke me up," his brother said, zipping the hoodie up and pulling a cigarette out of the pack in his pocket, before placing it between his lips. "Tell him to stop fucking calling. I'm sick of hearing his voice on the answering machine—tell him next time, I'll cut off the ropes he calls hair."

His voice always sounded a little muffled and funny when he talked around his cigarettes.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Twister rubbed his forehead again and peered down at the man, who was now throwing their garbage can, which was full into the street. He started kicking at an old milk carton, before picking it up and throwing it at the porch. 

And then he sort of sagged, as though he had tired himself out, and started toward the trailer, waving a hand behind him. Twister couldn’t tell if he was talking to someone, or just thinking _I’ll deal with it_ later to himself.

Twister knew that Lars knew Otto's name, but he always called him "your friend" when Otto wasn't in earshot.

"I mean it, man," Lars called up as he went down the stairs, making cutting motions with his fingers. "I'll cut them all fucking off."

Otto had woken Twister up too with his call, which is why he ignored it. 

He could barely function in the mornings anymore, unlike Otto, who rose with the sun ready to get up and do something. It took Twister breakfast and at least an hour to even comprehend the simplest of things. His brain was always foggier in the morning.

Twister looked up at the clock, it was ten after eleven, which meant he had been awake for nearly an hour and a half. 

He wondered what Otto would look like without his hair and couldn't picture it. He remember when they were kids and it was short, but for some reason, now he could only imagine him with long, trailing dreads.

The front door opened and slammed shut. 

Twister watched Lars make his way down the path from the house, hood up as he loped past the trash that littered the streets. 

Olive was out there now, picking up pieces of garbage and placing them into the now dented trashcan.

Lars strolled by her, and didn’t appear to even give her a cursory glance. Olive didn’t look up at him either as he passed—stepping on, from what Twister could see, was an old doughnut box, which the girl had picked up almost as soon as he stepped off of it.

Twister felt a twinge of guilt, his brother could be such an ass. 

He started toward his room. He was going to grab his coat and he was going to go help her. It was the right thing to do.

Twister hadn’t said more two words to her since she lived there—but Otto was always complaining about her. He was always saying how she never accepted his invitations, and how she didn’t seem to know any words other than ‘no’.

But Twister had seen little bruises on her arm as she passed him papers in class. He had seen the bags under eyes as though she hadn’t slept in days. And he had seen the way she jumped when someone touched her without warning.

He knew that ‘no’ was a powerful word when peopled listened.

Just as he grabbed his coat and slid on his shoes, the phone rang. He knew without checking the caller ID that it was Otto.  


**OLIVE:**

She tried to read and ignore Mike as he yelled obscenities and ranted incomprehensible things, but it was difficult. She could have moved inside, but she knew that she would just have to come outside once he was done, so there wasn’t much of a point.

Their electricity had been shut off again. To which her mother’s boyfriend reacted by throwing a fit in the yard and kicking the trashcan over.

Her mother was inside, trying to make something to eat out of everything in the fridge, since it was Saturday morning, and the energy company wouldn’t come out to turn their power back on until Monday. That is, if they even had the money for it.

The only upside was that they had a gas stove.

“Pick all that shit up,” Mike muttered, waving a hand behind him as he finally wore himself out and started up the worn stairs. “And then go do something with your fucking self—I don’t want to see you hovering all around here all day. Your face is pissing me the fuck off.”

Olive didn’t say anything, and fought the urge to roll her eyes, while she was still in his eye line.

“You hear me?” he yelled, and darted toward her with the last of his dying rage.

Olive flinched, and blinked toward the corner of the porch. His breath hit the side of her face. It smelt like cigarettes and dog shit, but it was better than his fist.

“Yeah,” she murmured, and he stood there for a moment, his eyes scraping over her, before heading inside and slamming the door shut behind him. She heard the twist of the lock as well and the muffled sound of her mother’s whining voice.

Sighing, she set her book down on her chair and started for the yard, picking up trash as she went and straightening up the trashcan.

Lars Rodriguez sauntered by her without looking—stepping on an old doughnut carton as he went. Olive picked it up and stared for a moment at his retreating back.

He never talked to her in public, which was fine. And she wouldn’t call them friends, but sometimes, when she was avoiding Mike and he was avoiding whatever haunted him in his house, they would sit together at the park and point out constellations. He would smoke or drink, and she would explain the stars to him. Or tell him about a recipe she found. He would stare at her bruises and she would tell him to knock it off.

And that was it.

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Hey.”

Olive started, and whipped around toward the voice.

Otto Rocket.

He was a skate star, a surfing champion, a biking genius. He was a legend in this town. He was also self-involved and a bit of an asshole, but that could be overlooked by most people. People can get away with a lot when they’re admired.

Every time they talked she had barely had anything to say to him, but one thing was always consistent and that was the word ‘No’. _No, she didn’t want to go to his house. No, she didn’t want to hang out with him and his friends, thanks. No. No. No._

And yet, here he was, shirtless and soaking wet from the rain with trash in his hands and smile on his face.

“Ollie,” he said, tossing the garbage into the can, like he was shooting a basketball. He made it in. “How have you been?”

“Great,” she said, lifting up the doughnut box as proof and stooping down to pick up an old bra of her mother’s, which had a weird stain on the right boob cup.

“What are you planning on doing on this fine summer day?”

“This.”

“You can’t pick up trash all day,” he said, grabbing a handful of cigarette cartons with one hand and a bunch of Craft Singles wrappers in the other.

“I was going to continue at the park after this,” Olive deadpanned, peering past him and seeing that his sister, Reggie Rocket, was standing on the porch, waving a jacket around wildly and not looking happy.

"I think she's mad," Olive said, nodding behind him.

Otto’s brow furrowed, and he glanced back over his shoulder.

"Oh," he said, looking genuinely surprised, before glancing down at his bare chest—like he hadn’t realized he wasn’t fully dressed. "She’s always pissed about something,” he said with a wave of his hand, but he started back pedaling toward his house just the same. “If you want to come over, we’re about to make a slip 'n slide."

He paused for a moment, raising an eyebrow at her, probably expecting the standard response.

Olive glanced around at the trash that still littered the streets, and then back at the trailer—knowing that Mike wasn’t about to unlock the door anytime soon.

And she heard herself say, “Sure.”  


**REGGIE:**

"Are you kidding me?" Reggie snapped as Otto jumped onto the porch and shook his wet hair out, hitting her with drops of water. "I don't care how warm it is, you need to where a jacket out in the rain."

She threw the jacket at him, and glanced over to the trailer that he was just at. 

"What were you even doing?" she asked, warily.

Otto had jumped up in the middle of talking to Twister and threw the phone onto the couch, and before Reggie's attention could be dragged from her computer, he was out running in the rain—barefoot and shirtless. Seeing as her brother had never been one for damsels in distress, so she chalked the whole thing up to boredom.

And the fact that Otto had always had weird thing for the Ellis girl. Reggie just figured he was fascinated by the new concept of rejection. 

“I was helping Olive Ellis pick up that piece of shit’s trash,” he said smugly as he pulled his jacket on and grinned cockily at her. “I even got her to agree to come over.”

Otto glanced behind him, and Reggie’s eyes followed, seeing the spindly girl standing outside a window, talking to a woman, who was smoking. Olive gestured toward their house.

Reggie rolled her eyes, and headed back inside.

“I guess it was only a matter of time before you broke her,” she muttered, jumping over the back of the couch, and pulling her laptop onto her lap again.

"Twist coming over?" Otto asked, still shaking out his hair as he closed the door behind him.

"I don't know," Reggie said, gesturing toward the phone, which was on the cushion farthest from her. "Why don't you ask him?"

She could hear music coming from the phone, but she couldn't make out exactly what it was. Otto picked up the phone, still smiling.

Reggie tried to ignore him, but his stunt had caused her to lose all concentration. She needed to finish this article for her Zine to kick off her summer editions, but between working at The Shack and being trapped inside with Otto, Twister, and Sam for a week, she had barely even two paragraphs down.

"Do you want to call Sam, or should I?" Otto was saying.

There was no way Reggie would get anything done if Sam was coming over. For past two years she and Sam hadn't been able to function properly around each other. He became cold and distance toward her, which in turn, lead to her trying to ignore him. Which was hard. Her eyes just had the habit of drifting toward him, no matter what she tried.

She had tried to talk to him about it, but he said he didn’t know what she was talking about. Now she felt like they were in some sort of Cold War—like, whoever broke this weird energy between them first lost some sort of battle that she didn’t agree to.

"Yeah, you're right," Otto said, slumping down onto the couch next to her. She figured Twister was reminding Otto that he and Sam barely had anything to say to each other now—other than their video game sprees. Reggie didn’t know what was up with that either. "Alright, I'll call him. Just get your ass over here. Oh! Wait. Guess who I got to finally agree to come over?"

Reggie groaned and shut her laptop. Otto ignored her, chanting “Guess. Guess. Guess,” into the phone over and over.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Twist, you’re no fun,” Otto pouted, and her first thought was to agree with her brother’s statement. But it wasn’t totally true. Twister had changed a lot in the past few years, but he was still Twister. “Olive—you know who I’m fucking talking about. Olive Ellis. Lives in that shitty ass trailer across the street….Yeah, she’ll be here any minute, so get over here…If you bail on me, I will personally come over there and drag your ass—Great! See you soon!”

Otto began to dial Sam’s number, and Reggie eyed his shorts, which were soaking the couch.

 _Don't be a mother_ , she thought to herself, closing her eyes and straining to hear Sam's quiet voice on the other end of the line, but knew that she wouldn't.

“Hey…did you just wake up? Dude, it’s, like, eleven…Whatever, just get over here…Yes, now,” Otto clicked the phone off without a goodbye. 

Reggie looked back at his wet shorts.

"They'll both be over in like five minutes, so you better get your bathing suit on, because we're goin' to slip ‘n slide!"

Otto bounced himself off the couch, leaving a wet spot behind him, and bounded up the stairs.

"We'll all catch colds," she hollered after him, watching as his head popped back into view at the top of the staircase.

"Don't be such a mom, Reg, and get your fucking suit on," he hollered, bobbing out of view again.

Reggie sighed again, and stared at the phone. She should be dialing Trent’s number right now. Seeing as Trent was her boyfriend of almost two years. 

But instead she heaved herself off the couch and started thinking about which bikini of hers would look best in the rain.

**SAM:**

He was standing in the rain, watching Otto enthusiastically set up the tarp as a slip 'n slide with Twister wandering aimlessly around it, his video camera in hand and a hat on over his unruly hair, which was pulled back into what looked like a pom of hair at the base of his long neck.

Twister’s beanie looked like a shark trying to swallow his head with fins as ear flaps and a dorsal fin on top. Sam had gotten it from him for his birthday three years ago. It was a ratty, dirty thing now.

Reggie watched from the porch, and Sam felt like she was purposely ignoring him. It always felt like she was ignoring him. She hadn't even said hi, just gave him a small nod when he showed up and hadn’t looked his way since.

He wondered what he did.

He couldn't think of anything.

He dug his toe into the dirt.

The trailer girl—Olive—sat on the porch set, clutching a book to her chest and watching Otto or Twister. Sam didn’t pay much attention to her. He had seen her around school.

She was tall, having a least an inch on him, and quiet. And she was in Twist and Otto’s grade, not his and Reggie’s. But Sam was surprised to see her when he showed up, Otto had incessantly invited her to a lot of their gatherings, all of which she had said no to. He momentarily wondered what had changed her mind.

And then he decided he didn’t really care all that much.

The hum of his PlayStation was still stuck in his mind, he had been working his way through _Okage: The Shadow King_ – a game which he had almost forgotten about entirely, before he was looking for something to sell to buy _OlliOlli2_ – when Otto called. He hadn't even gone to bed that night. 

Sam rubbed his eyes and suppressed a yawn, wondering if Reggie would let him make some coffee.  
His mind couldn't keep up with what Otto was saying, all he heard was Twister's slow, low-pitched voice.

_Dude. Wicked. Yeah, man._

Wicked wasn't even something people said on this coast. Sam wondered where Twister had picked it up.

"Hey, Reg," Sam said, tugging his hood further over his head. Her eyes darted toward him, but her expression remained neutral. "Could I get some coffee?"

"Coffee?" Otto hollered, eyes narrowed because of the rain, or because Sam was weak enough to want caffeine. Sam couldn’t tell which. And he really didn’t care.

It took him years to stop giving a shit of what Otto Rocket thought about his life choices, and he wasn’t going to start doing it again.

Sam nodded, making his way up the steps to their house. Otto also didn't understand the concept of caffeine, because he had never needed it. Sam, however, needed at least two cups in the morning just to keep up with him and Twist. Well, just Otto now. The more Twister aged, the mellower he got.

"You'll have to make it," Reggie said, leaning against the railing on the porch, her head in her hand and her ass sticking out. 

Sam didn't look at her. 

She didn't look at him.

He was about to walk inside when Reggie spoke again.

"God, what is he doing here?" she said with slight venom in her voice.

Sam looked behind him. Lars Rodriguez was loping toward them, a bottle of vodka under an arm, a six pack in the same hand, and a cigarette hanging limply from his mouth.

"I can hear you, _Regina_ ," he said, taking the cigarette from his mouth. It wasn't even lit. The rain had put it out.

Lars used to be like them, well, like Otto. Tan, sporty, and fast. Now he was pale and measured, he smiled slowly and partied more than he skated. Sam couldn't think of the last time he had seen him surf.

Since their mom died, both Twister and Lars seemed to lose themselves. Twister quit talking a mile a minute and Lars either drank or drugged himself to sleep each night. And their dad barely came home long enough to ground them, before heading off to another business trip.

Sam’s mom always tutted sadly when she saw either one of the Rodriguez boys, and always insisted Sam invited them over for dinner.

Which he didn’t.

He didn’t like Lars. And Twister…sometimes it was hard to have a conversation with him, unless they were duking it out in some sort of video game. And the brothers kind of just made Sam…sad.

"Hey, Moe," he said, nodding at his brother. "I'm having people over."

"Yeah, yeah," Twister said, focusing his camera on his brother for a second, before slowly switching back to Otto.

Sam ducked inside before Otto had the chance to open his mouth. Lars and Otto got along like a live pig on a spit and fire.  


**LARS:**

This was his favorite part. 

The blonde had already went inside, he always left, avoiding confrontation. Lars wondered what he'd be like to fight, he had grown from chunky to stalky, solid. Probably had fists like hammers.

He could already taste the blood.

"What the fuck do we care about you having friends over?" Otto snapped, hitting a stake, which had a rope tied to the tarp attached to it, into the ground. He was only wearing a pair of swimming trunks and a coat.

"Hey, _Moe_ ," Lars drawled again, receiving a scathing look from Otto. "I'm having people over."

"'Kay," his brother said, not even looking up from his camera. He was now filming the rain falling wearing that stupid shark hat.

Lars liked his brother, which was something he had recently realized. He liked his slow smile, his seemingly perpetual confusion, the strange socks he always wore, and the way he always looked like he was somewhere else - never here, never now. He also like the way Otto Rocket's top lip twitched when he was annoyed, how he clenched his fists and then released them slowly, and how his eyes darkened. 

That was a different sort of like though.

Lars pocketed his cigarette and glanced at Reggie, who was still glaring at him.

She had never liked him. They had had a couple of classes together, before he started failing. She never spoke to him. He never really minded.

He didn’t like her much either.

He was a little surprised to see Olive sitting on the porch with a book pressed to her chest. But he barely glanced at her.

Lars rubbed his neck out of habit, trying to erase the words from it. He had been drunk when he got it. _Idiot._

“He know you’re out here?” he asked, not looking at her, but Olive knew he was talking to her. She waited a beat to answer, which was a mistake as Otto Rocket was listening to the conversation.

“Who?” Otto demanded.

“I’m assuming he can see me, if he looks out the window,” she said ignoring Otto, and Lars saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye. He felt all of the other’s eyes darting between them. He felt their confusion over this thing that he had with her that they didn’t know about. He liked it. “I don’t he’s going to be bird watching much today though, so I’m sure he’ll never find out.”

Lars shrugged, accepting the answer.

Otto’s nostrils flared, like Lars knew they would.

Otto had been trying to get Olive’s attention since she had moved into that piece of shit trailer—and Lars just proved he had been getting her attention all along. Which wasn’t why he hung out with her on occasion, but it was a nice bonus.

Otto started toward him. Lars felt his mouth slowly lift into a lazy grin, his eyes trailing Otto even as he brushed by him. He smelled like the ocean and Old Spice.

"Where you going?" Reggie called after him as the blonde came out of the house and back onto the porch.

Lars knew his name, he just couldn't think of it. Maurice rarely said it. The blonde and his brother didn't get along well, one too logical, the other too drifty. The only thing they had in common were the Rockets.

"To get soap," Otto spat words out like his sister was an idiot for even asking. He had turned around to walk backwards as he said it. His eyes skittered toward Lars, who lifted an eyebrow. 

Otto swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed.

Otto turned back around, stomping toward the garage. His feet slapping the wet pavement.

He cast a glance over at Olive, wondering what would happen if her mom’s boyfriend saw her out here with a bunch of teenage boys.

Probably nothing good.

“Have fun, Moe,” he said, putting to fingers to his temple and saluting his brother, before heading back toward their empty house. Maurice muttered something that he didn’t catch.

He looked into the Rocket’s garage, seeing Otto with a giant container of dish soap, glaring at him. Lars smirked back.

Lars wondered if the guy would get high, stumble out, and try to fight them all. He looked like the fighting type – thin, wiry, and strung-out. He thought of the blonde disappearing at the first sight of confrontation. He thought of his brother, who he doubted would step up. And he knew that it would be down to Otto. Lars wondered what Otto’s knuckles would feel like against his mouth. 

And then Lars wondered if he'd stop try the strung-out lunatic, should anything actually happen. Whether he would do anything to help. 

_No_ , he thought, _probably not_.


End file.
